Next Stop, Tahiti -- NOT

Rating: 6/10 (23 December 2005)

A Michael Bay film is never a quiet cerebral experience. One is not talking intellectual cinema, but Hollywood movie, big budget, corporate slick, and mass audience marketing. Thus, The Island can only be viewed from the position of what pleases the status quo. Although an intriguing premise opens the film -- an ocean setting, a ravishing beautiful couple (Scarlet Johanson and Ewan McGregor), and a big, faster than fast yacht in a turquoise pristine sea -- it is not a dream, it's a nightmare of Lincoln Six Echo (McGregor), a troubled young man with a vivid memory that haunts him. What is his world, purpose, and reality in an over regulated existence where adults are worker bees in an institutional setting, and where white, high key lighting bathes everyone in a literal aura. The daily routine is only broken by the chance of the lottery and dream to win a trip to "the island -- nature's last pathogen-free zone."
Lincoln has an interest in Jordan Two Delta (Johanson) but they can not touch nor would they seem likely to go further than a mere graze of the arm as all adults have a child like reasoning deficiency, including Lincoln. Proximity avoided, he begins to overtly question his situation, dream, lack of food and clothing choices, and what exists beyond the confines of the institutional prison where he is monitored, tested, and continually watched. Curiosity and skills seem to be developing in Lincoln that will lead to his violating the parameters of the agnate world and taking Jordan Two Delta along with him.
The Island digresses to a car chase bang-bang, bad guy versus good guy extended romp through Los Angeles freeways, high-rise buildings, and the desert. The intriguing premise is quickly rushed to the too obvious ending, and a superior cast of McGregor, Johanson, Sean Bean D'Jarmon Hinsou, and Steve Buccemi are wasted by the SFX, CGI, and over the top explosions. Blame director Michael Bays who makes a film for profit and profit only. Too bad it bombed, and what a disappointment for audiences who spent money to obtain the DVD which has only minimal added features and an all but monosyllabic narrative by the director. He has only himself to blame.